


Predator

by RadioWaves



Category: Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood
Genre: Animal Metaphors, Crake/Snowman if you squint, Discussion of Violence, F/M, How many animal metaphors can one gal work into 600 words?? The answer may shock you!, M/M, Multi, Oryx point of view, back on this pain train
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:27:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24278833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadioWaves/pseuds/RadioWaves
Summary: ˈprɛdətə/noun1. an animal that naturally preys on others.2. a person who ruthlessly exploits others.OROryx thinks about the nature of survival.
Relationships: Crake/Oryx (Oryx and Crake), Crake/Snowman (Oryx and Crake), Oryx/Snowman (Oryx and Crake)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Predator

Oryx watches like a predator; waiting, hidden.

She enjoys watching Jimmy from a distance, even as she smiles and laughs and fucks him. It's like there's still a wall between them, her name, her past, and as Jimmy strips himself bare for her with whispered secrets and honest noises teased from his throat, she feels like a tiger clawing a bird before it bites down. 

Even if he can feel it, he still takes it, still allows himself the illusion of a gap between the claws, a chink in her armour, as he begs her for SOMETHING, some desperate weakening so that he can be the predator for once. Poor thing. Even SHE can't tell if she's lying now, so engrossed in the persona of Oryx, of the fragile, gentle antelope that there's nothing else. It's as if she's been reborn into Oryx, her pasts wiped away like cool rain on a drawing in the sand. They'd always said that in the United States you could be whatever you wanted to be, and she's certainly taken that to heart. But Jimmy... poor Jimmy, he's never been able to adapt. She listens to his Words, his antique Words that he keeps like old bones, and she thinks about a book she'd read long ago about a man called Darwin. She looks at Jimmy, and notes that he resembles one of his finches rather than a thickney bird. 

———————————————————

He tells her that he loves her, especially when they're having sex. He doesn't, of course, but it's important that he thinks he does. He thinks that saying it first will give him some power over her, over whatever it is they have, and she allows him this as Oryx would. 

"I love you too", she says patiently, before distracting him with a well-placed mouth before he can stare into her eyes and realise that a predator is looking back at him, hungry. She is fond of him, she supposes. But she isn't the only predator, and she's smart enough to realise that there are others hungrier, more ruthless than she. She may be a tiger, but there's a far more vicious predator circling them both- a scientist.

———————————————————

There's a saying she found one day, "who watches the watcher?" It's meant to be a kind of rhetorical question, but she knows the answer. It's the man with green eyes, eyes sharper than any animal she's ever seen, mind racing faster than a cheetah chasing its prey. She watches him as he gently moulds his finch, carefully developing it until has no choice but to survive, so smoothly that his prey doesn't even notice him moving in for the kill. She mulls this over as Jimmy says his next "I love you", wondering if perhaps there are ways to say it without Words. She's careful not to pursue this line of thinking, lest she be spotted. 

As she and Crake fuck, he never tells her he loves her, with or without Words. She can appreciate that, likes the way that they both play their roles, pretending that their claws are sheathed even as they study the other, ready to shred into the others softness. She knows that she'd never win. But somehow, she doesn't think she minds very much. Survival of the fittest, and all that. They both bat their prey around as Jimmy remains oblivious, forced to dance to their tune, believing that the danger has been escaped until the teeth clench his neck. 

———————————————————

In the end, they all die. She's killed by the bigger predator, as she always knew she would be. Crake dies on his own terms, pulling the strings right up until his last breath and revelling in the mark he leaves, dangerous and human as always. And Jimmy... he sheds his old beak for something more pointed, sharp. He adapts. He SURVIVES, and proves his creator right. It's too late that he realises that the predators had already pounced.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m in quarantine and I thought of this book again.


End file.
